Call for Proposals for Conducting Training on Small and Micro Businesses Diagnostics in EU-Funded Project

The EU-funded project “GreenHouse for Social Innovators” is looking for an organisation to conduct a training programme on small and micro enterprises diagnostics.

All interested organisations should submit their commercial proposals to the following email address: elova@ibb-do.de no later than 27 December 2023. Please, indicate “ToT Training Diagnostics” in the subject line of your letter. Please see a detailed description below.

1.1 Background of the Project
The overall objective of the project “GreenHouse for Social Innovators” is to foster active participation of youth in the labour markets and social economy of Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine and contribute to sustainable and smart growth, social cohesion and reduction of inequalities in the EaP societies.

The specific objective of the project is to strengthen local young social entrepreneurs' and trainers’ communities in Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine via launching and running an Acceleration programme with a special focus on sustainable green and digital social business models and international exchange.

The project will start with the development and implementation of a training programme for future mentors (ToT). The idea behind this component is to create a pool of trainers who will be able to provide advice, mentoring and training to help social and green start-ups to develop in a more sustainable way from different perspectives - to make their projects financially stable on the markets they operate, to preserve and increase social and environmental impact through business process optimization, introduction of new technologies, digital and green solutions, better planning and managing the desired positive effects.

In total 45 trainers from three countries will be trained during two separate one-week long sessions in Georgia. Georgia is selected to host the offline activities for the reason of being neutral and safe for all participating partners and representatives of target groups. Additionally, many Ukrainians and Belarusians have been relocated to Georgia following events in the region. One of three project partners - Georgian Crafts Heritage - located in Georgia and will act as the main local organiser of ToT sessions.

The Georgian and Ukrainian partners will ensure selection of participants for the ToT programme from their respective countries. Criteria for selecting participants will be their professional qualifications and experience, strong motivation to study social economy and wish to contribute to the development of the SE sector in the project's countries, orientation towards environmentally friendly solutions and openness to professional exchange with their colleagues from partner countries. The German partner will be responsible for the recruitment and selection of participants from Belarus. All three partners will make sure that the selected future mentors possess different expertise on various aspects of doing business to be able to cover the demand from young social startups. After the selection process, the participants will be invited to partake in two 6-day long training sessions in Georgia to study and train:
• key elements of social entrepreneurship and best examples of social enterprises from the EU and EaP; various approaches to social impact measurement;
• 8k methodology to diagnose small and medium-sized enterprises;
• coaching and mentoring competences;
• business-models of cleantech and basics of green transition for SMEs
• digital tools for business development.
New topics that have been added to the ToT agenda to those stated in the concept note because of their relevance to the participation in the project of representatives from Belarus and Ukraine, are
• mediation and conflict management

2. Description of the assignment
2.1. Main Objective
The main objective of the assignment is to design, develop and conduct a training for trainers on diagnostics of small and microbusinesses for the representatives of business communities of Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine who will be selected to become project mentors for social entrepreneurs in respective countries, using 8k Methodology.

2.2. Specific objectives and the scope of work
By beginning of January 2024, a three day long offline training session agenda in Georgia for 50 social startup mentors and supporting materials will be developed.

2.3 Target group

Around 50 young business professionals, and business-trainers/consultants, business owners, men and women, at the age of 18-35 years from different regions of Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine, as well as representatives of recently relocated companies from Ukraine and Belarus, having successful businesses and genuine interest to become mentors for social startups. These people will be selected through an open call for applications using professional networks of three project partners in Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia, as well as in the countries that hosted many political and war refugees from Ukraine and Belarus - such as Poland, Lithuania and Moldova. As for Georgian trainers, more focus will be given to those professionals who currently reside in the country.

2.4 Responsibilities:

1. Develop 3-day offline practicum training course for business trainers on 8K methodology of business diagnostic for SMEs on December 1-5, 2023;
2. Conduct 3-day offline practicum training for around 50 business trainers in the period of January 17-22, 2024. The list of pre-selected social enterprises will be provided by the Project Coordinator.

Day 1: How to set up a diagnostic of SMEs, key elements of diagnostic, results of diagnostic;

Day 2: SMEs diagnostic by stages: client´s profile, business model diagnostic, diagnostics of the finance model of the business, risk analysis, preparation of development plan upon the results of diagnostics.

Day 3: diagnostic of two enterprises

1. Prepare report and recommendations upon the results of training

 Deliverables:

1. Deliverable 1: training materials.
2. Deliverable 2: training video materials, report with the recommendations.
3. Deliverable 3: assessment of the trainer’s progress with regards to obtained skills

 2.5 REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Experience in:

Business consulting on the methodology 8K confirmed by working experience
Developing marketing strategies for social enterprises confirmed by working experience
Business coaching
Business development.

Languages: English (C1), or Belarusian (C1), Ukrainian (C1), Georgian (C1)

Competencies:

Developed and implemented business strategies confirmed by working experience in marketing and sales, particularly for social enterprises;
Working with limited resources;
Knowledge of regional realities of social entrepreneurs;
Knowledge of and ability to transfer expertise in the area of effective business development for Social Enterprises in Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine.   

3. PAYMENT SCHEDULE

Payment is made in 2 installments after approval of the results specified in the Service agreement.